Ministry of Security and Justice

An Armenian mother was deported from the Netherlands on Monday without her children Howick (12) and Lily (11). The family lived in the Netherlands for nine years. According to children's rights organization Defense for Children, this is the first time ever that a mother was deported without her kids. "Horrible", the organization said, according to RTL Nieuws.

Gerard Bouman, former chief of the National Police, passed away on Monday at the age of 64, his family announced. According to a statement from the family, Bouman never regained consciousness after suffering a severe heart attack while on vacation in the United States in June.

Bouman's family asked the media to respect their privacy in this time. "We want to guide Gerard calmly and peacefully to his last resting place."

Mounir E. from Spijkensse can not be prosecuted for breaking an area ban imposed on him during the Rotterdam Marathon earlier this year, because of "carelessness" by the Ministry of Security and Justice when imposing the ban, the court in Rotterdam ruled, AD reports.

The Dutch government is against a parliamentary proposal to only allow police officers in videos and photos if their faces and other identifying features have been blurred out. Minister Stef Blok of Security and Justice called the proposal "undesirable" and "unnecessary" in a letter to the Tweede Kamer on Thursday, NU.nl reports.

Minister Stef Blok of Security and Justice is working on new legislation that will make harsher punishments possible for people guilty of serious traffic violators, like driving under the influence or without a license, reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident, RTL Nieuws reports.

Dutch prisons and psychiatric institutions where convicts undergo mandatory treatment are having trouble preventing drug use among their charges. Last year many thousands of drug tests came back positive and the use of cannabis and cocaine is increasing alarmingly, ANP reports based on urine test results the news wire requested from the Ministry of Security and Justice.

The modernization of the Criminal Procedure Code will cost police officers more time working on administration, and that comes at the expense of other important tasks like investigation, two police higher ups warned in the Volkskrant on Tuesday.

King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima officially opened the National Monument for the victims of flight MH17 during the memorial service on the third anniversary of the disaster on Monday afternoon. The monument is located in Vijfhuizen Park next to Schiphol Airport, where MH17 took off on July 17th, 2014.

A psychologist who works in the prison in Alphen aan de Rijn was nearly strangled to death by a prisoner over a week ago, the Telegraaf reports based on a source with in the penitentiary institution. People working in prisons across the Netherlands are facing an increasing amount of violence directed at them, according to figures ANP requested.

An increasing number of Dutch prisons are taking part in an experiment in which certain prisoners are given more freedom of movement and responsibility. The idea is to prod prisoners into becoming more self-sufficient. But the prison guards are worried that the experiment is only giving the detainees more freedom to conduct their criminal business within the prison walls, they said to newspaper AD.

Last year over 400 outlaw motorcycle gang members in the Netherlands were suspects in a total of 680 criminal offenses, according to a report on Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs published on Thursday. That amounts to one in five of the outlaw bikers known to the police, ANP reports.

The crimes involved nearly 150 cases of violent crimes like assault and public violence, dozens of threats and over 20 cases of illegal firearm possession. There were also 13 cases of murder or manslaughter, and a large number of drug related crimes and extortion.

Over the first five moths of this year the Ministry of Security and Justice deported 480 migrants who were convicted of a crime. Among them were 60 Albanians, 60 Surinamese, 50 Algerians and 50 Moroccans, a spokesperson for the ministry confirmed to NU.nl after reports in AD.

The Ministry's figures show that the proportion of criminal migrants that were forced to leave the Netherlands increased every year since 2011. In that year 72 percent of this group were deported, now it is 80 percent.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte is pleased that those responsible for downing flight MH17 will be prosecuted in the Netherlands, calling the decision the "next step on the way to finding the truth." The Dutch government is also signing a treaty with the Ukraine on Friday that will allow for prosecution on behalf of all 298 victims, not only the 196 Dutch, AD reports.

The Netherlands is tightening the rules and regulations around early release and sentence interruption for foreign prisoners as of January 1st, State Secretary Klaas Dijkhoff of Security and Justice wrote to parliament on Tuesday, AD reports.

Threatened journalists should be offered more protection by the police, judiciary and their employers, according to a study done on behalf of journalists union NVJ. This relatively unprotected group performs an important social task and deserves the same protection as other people working for the public interest, like police officers and firefighters, the researchers conclude, Trouw reports.

Photos are circulating on the internet of young people posing with drugs and jihad flags at the Nijmegen juvenile detention center De Hunnerberg. The Ministry of Security and Justice confirmed that the photos were taken in the institution, but added that they were taken in 2014, before the asylum crisis, Omroep Gelderland reports.

Dutch companies, government institutions and citizens are not responding fast enough against growing digital threats, according to National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security Dick Schoof. At home and at work Dutch people often opt for the fastest solution, instead of the most secure one. Which means that the gap between threats and security measures is getting larger instead of smaller, Schoof said in the Netherlands Cyber Security Image 2017, ANP reports.

The Dutch country side is a "playground for criminals", where the police show up late, if they show up at all, 12 commissioners of the King wrote in a scathing report about the priorities of the National Police, AD reports.

A parent or grandparent traveling with a minor child through Schiphol Airport this summer, should take extra time for an additional security check into account. The Koninklijke Marechaussee implemented an additional check in the fight against child abduction, ANP reports.

If you are a family member traveling alone with an underage child, you need the permission from both parents to do so. In this additional check, the Koninklijke Marechaussee will check whether this permission is in place for each child not traveling with both parents. This check could take some time.

Relatives of MH17 victims will be allowed to view Schiphol security camera footage of their loved ones checking in for the Malaysia Airlines flight - the last footage recorded of the victims, the Ministry of Security and Justice decided. When and how this viewing will happen is still being considered, AD reports.

The Ministry of Security and Justice wants an explanation from India on why the country will not extradite Shehzad Hemani, who kidnapped his 3-year-old daughter Insiya from Amsterdam last year. The Ministry will shortly send a letter to the Indian authorities, demanding an explanation, the Public Prosecutor said in a preparatory hearing in the court of Amsterdam on Friday, AD reports.

Due to an error at the immigration and naturalization service IND, between 2 thousand and 3 thousand immigrants were mistakenly exempted from taking the integration exam, State Secretary Klaas Dijkhoff said in a letter to the Tweede Kamer on Thursday. Their residency permits were also upgraded from valid for a limited time, to valid for an unlimited time.

The mistake has to do with new rules that were implemented for exemption from the exam as of January 1st, 2015. The stricter rules were not applied to everyone who asked for exemption.

The fundamental rights of Volkert van der Graaf, convicted murderer of politician Pim Fortuyn, were violated when personal information about him leaked to the public just before his release in 2014, the National Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen concluded in a complaint filed by Van der Graaf, the Volkskrant reports.

According to the newspaper, an anonymized version of the report can be found on the Ombudsman's website. "The applicant was imprisoned for a criminal offense which received a lot of media attention" the Ombudsman's report states.